ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Optimizing nuclear plant outages: Data analytics tools and methods for enhancing resilience and efficiency
Nuclear power plant refueling outages are among the most complex phases in a plant’s operational cycle.1 During these outages, tens of thousands of activities, including maintenance and surveillance, are conducted simultaneously within a short timeframe. Typically lasting three to four weeks, these operations involve large crews of contractors with diverse skill sets performing tasks ranging from testing and surveillance to maintenance. Outages may extend longer if major backfitting or modernization projects are planned. Consequently, plant outages are expensive, incurring significant operational costs, such as contractor labor and equipment, as well as the loss of generation while the plant is off line. This can easily cost a plant operator more than $1 million a day. Therefore, there is a constant need to mitigate the economic impact on plants by reducing the frequency, duration, and risks associated with these outages.2,3
G. W. Brown
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 795-801
Impurity Control | Proceedings of the Seveth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Reno, Nevada, June 15–19, 1986) | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24837
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A mechanism for positioning the Advanced Limiter Test II (ALT-II) limiter blades inside the TEXTOR tokamak is described. Testing of two candidate material pairs for use as gears and bearings, Nitronic 60/aluminum bronze and Nitronic 60/Nitronic 60, is also described. The lubricant was a solid film of MoS2. The testing, done at the temperature and pressure range of the tokamak, revealed that the combination of Nitronic 60 and the softer aluminum bronze performed much better than the Nitronic 60/Nitronic 60 combination. The latter combination performed well for 24,000 cycles (48% of expected lifetime), but then experienced a sudden increase in friction due to galling. The former pair performed well, exhibiting low friction throughout the duration of the test.
